“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

This new noisy single from emerging Manchester pair Pool Art is
terrifying to put things mildly. The calm way in which the singer purrs ‘don’t
feed me to them’ is already unsettling enough, but it’s nothing compared to the
latter half of the track which swiftly plummets into a Satanic abyss of blitzkrieg percussion and eerie ascending guitar squeals. If this is ‘dream’ pop, it’s clearly the nightmare variety.

‘Fresh Hell’ – Greys

Inspired by the acquittal of Jian Ghomeshi and the death
of Rob Ford - two people who frontman Shehzaad has referred to in a press
statement as ‘total pieces of shit’ - this track sees Toronto punks Greys letting out their anger at the brainwashing
of the Canadian public, one minute hating a public figure, the next minute
sympathising over them. As you can tell immediately, most of the rock music I’ve
been favouring this week isn’t the soft variety. These dissonant guitars are
downright ugly and the production’s so filthy you’ll want to take a bath.

‘Poppies’ – KNGDAVD

One of the less moody selections this week, funky
distorted synths and theatrically buoyant vocals make up this new single from
mysterious Soundcloud entity KNGDAVD. Further research suggests they are in
fact a duo from New York. Clearly they don’t like talking about themselves - they don’t even feel comfortable putting the letter ‘I’ in their band name.

Backed by a beat made up of sinister pitched bells, Danny
drops a single squawking verse before buggering off, handing over the rest of the track to his awesome entourage of guests. Guests like Ab-soul,
Earl Sweatshirt and some guy you may have heard of called Kendrick Lamar. It’s
an impressive line-up with impressive results. I’ve never been all that hyped
about the gap-toothed pill-popping Detroit rapper before, but his upcoming
album is looking damn exciting.

'Starboy' - The Weeknd

The title isn’t all two dissimilar to a certain David
Bowie song. And I was expecting Daft Punk’s contribution to be more than brief
robotic backing vocals. But even so, this is catchy stuff from the
palm-tree-haired pop singer.Hear preview here.

THE WORST:

‘I’m Vegan!!! Die, meateaters’ – Misha

Protesting against the killing of animals by promoting
the killing of human beings seems somewhat hypocritical, but I guess this
militant vegan is only a kid so his sense of logic hasn’t fully developed yet.
That said, I’d quite happily watch this tuneless brat get slapped round the
face with a leg of ham.